Singler, Duke too much for Purdue

Dec 3, 2008 - 6:35 AM
WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (Ticker) -- Duke passed its first road
test with flying colors and continued its dominance against the
Big Ten Conference.

Kyle Singler had 20 points and 12 rebounds and Jon Scheyer also
scored 20 as fourth-ranked Duke led from start to finish en
route to a 76-60 victory over No. 10 Purdue on Tuesday.

Nolan Smith added 12 points for the Blue Devils (8-0), who
improved to 10-0 all-time in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Playing its first ranked opponent and its first road game, Duke
was aggressive on the boards and shut down Purdue's offense for
the duration of the contest. The Boilermakers were
outrebounded, 49-29.

"I'm proud of our guys," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We
beat a really good team tonight. Our defense and rebounding was
great tonight. We just rebounded better than them tonight and
won."

With Mackey Arena rocking, both teams got off to slow starts.
Duke scored the game's first seven points - despite missing its
first four shots - before Purdue got on the board with Chris
Kramer's jumper 4:11 into the game.

"It's important to get off to a good start in an environment
like this," Krzyzewski said. "Purdue was so amped I think they
missed on some easy plays and layups. They wanted it so bad."

But Duke started to make some shots and Singler had a pair of
layups as Duke extended the lead to 22-12 with 9:20 left in the
half.

The Blue Devils led by as many as 13 late in the first half
before settling for a 36-28 advantage at the break.

Purdue missed its first seven shots to begin the second half and
Duke stretched its lead to 45-31 with 15:45 left in the contest.

Duke held Purdue scoreless for nearly four minutes midway
through the session and Singler's 3-pointer from the top of the
arc pushed the Blue Devils' bulge to 55-36 with 11:04 remaining.

"Jon and Kyle played at an extremely high level tonight,"
Krzyzewski said. "Jon's a veteran, he's accustomed to big games
like these. Playing against a physical team, you like to have
the ball in these guys' hands because you know there (are) going
to be fouls and they are automatic from the line."

The Boilermakers, who shot 37 percent (22-of-59) from the floor,
never got closer than 10 the rest of the way. Purdue made just
2-of-13 from the arc.

Robbie Hummel scored 15 points and JaJuan Johnson had 12 to lead
the Boilermakers (5-2), who were coming off an overtime loss to
Oklahoma last Friday.

Purdue's leading scorer E'Twaun Moore did not score until there
was 10:44 left in the game. He finished with 10 points.

"It's not often you get these opportunities to play teams that
have this quality," Moore told the Indianapolis Star. "We
definitely missed an opportunity, especially since they came on
our court and beat us."